To drive down carbon emissions on every project, we need to change the Building Regs

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report opens with the stark message: ‘It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.’ It is the latest in a series of scientific statements of concern, adding to the warnings of others that predict global food shortages, the potential collapse of the Gulf Stream, and the loss of British seaside towns by 2050.

Meanwhile, in the past few months, we’ve experienced storms so bad in London that hospitals had to turn people away at the door, Europe recorded its hottest temperature ever at nearly 50°C, and Italy, Greece and Turkey lost half a million acres of forest to fires.

The science is clear – the climate is changing; it’s our fault, and it’s going to get much worse unless dramatic action is taken.

In the UK, emissions due to construction, maintenance and demolition of the built environment now amount to 42 million tonnes of carbon per year (about the same as 100,000 full Boeing 747s flying from London to New York), and many in construction want to see this change. In the two years that have passed since the launch of Architects Declare, we’ve seen a seismic shift in opinion on what constitutes good design – with architects, engineers, builders and clients pushing to change the way the industry works. But it’s not enough.

No matter how well-intentioned and skilled the designer, how innovative the builder, or how enthusiastic the client, a project will regress back to business as usual if just one member of the value chain isn’t on board. Those wanting to go low-carbon are still concerned that they’ll be undercut by greenwashing competitors. Investors under pressure to deliver a quick return still associate larger column spacings with larger profits. And defaulting to standard construction materials is still quicker and easier than trying to convince insurers to let you break the mould.

So, if we are going to ensure that every member of the value chain starts to work together to drive down emissions, then we need legal limits on emissions embedded into regulation and applicable on every project. We need Part Z.

Part Z is a proposed amendment to the Building Regulations, drafted by industry sustainability experts, that introduces the requirement to assess whole-life carbon and limit embodied carbon emissions.

It’s just seven pages long, as it builds off existing industry guidance, providing policy-makers with a quick solution to tackling construction industry emissions. By setting limits, rather than setting specific requirements on individual elements, the flexibility to design the most appropriate solution for each brief is retained, but now with resource use given an equal footing with cost, quality and time.

Such a mind-shift will naturally lead to investment into new materials, fire-safety research, and retrofit apprenticeships. And it will start to level the playing field for the investors and clients who want to do good things but are held back by the rest of the industry.

We are gathering statements of support for the regulation of embodied carbon in the hope that policy makers will see that this industry is ready for change, and so far we have heard from over 70 different companies who are supporting the notion, including architects such as Allies and Morrison, FCBS and Hopkins; engineers including Arup, Atkins and WSP; and developers such as Landsec, Stanhope and Grosvenor Britain & Ireland.

If your practice hasn’t already added its support for regulation, head to www.part-z.uk/support and get in touch.

We believe that Part Z forms a vital part to the UK’s response to the IPCC’s Code Red For Humanity, and we want 2021 to be the year that the construction industry came together to demand that the bar is set higher for what we design and construct.

Will Arnold is head of climate action at the Institution of Structural Engineers. Julie Godefroy, head of sustainability at CIBSE, also contributed to this article.